How Occupy Wall Street will decide privately owned public space law

A certain privately owned public open space features in the news recently but not due to any notable design aspects. As The Wall Street Journal points out in this recent article, much to the chagrin of its owners, Brookfield Properties Inc., the Occupy Wall Street movement established camp in “Zucotti Park,” a privately owned public open space that developers constructed only in order to gain an additional 300,000 square feet of rentable space in their adjacent buildings back in the '60s.  The kicker? Brookfield Properties Inc.’s tenants include the likes of Bank of America and Morgan Stanley, the very banks the protesters decry.

In contrast to a publicly owned space such as a sidewalk or plaza where law allows the removal of protesters without a permit, this privately owned space is in a legal gray area. While the owners of the space have expressed their wish to see the protesters removed, the protesters remain.

In a feeble attempt to disperse the protesters, representatives of Brookfield Properties Inc. attempted to pass out flyers of the updated rules for the space. According to the Wall Street Journal:

"Previously, the only rules posted in the park prohibited skateboarding, rollerblading and bicycling. Men in suits tried to pass out printed copies of the rules, but protesters refused and chanted “Don’t take the papers.” So they put stacks on benches and tables, prompting the protesters to accuse them of littering."

In my previous blog entry about POPOS, I wrote about previous attempts to gauge the publicness of  spaces  like Zucotti Park in San Francisco. Organizers scheduled kecak monkey chanting lessons and sleep-ins in these spaces as an experiment in publicness. Despite the resistance of building managers and private security (the popo of the POPOS), the police in San Francisco sided with the monkey chanters, protecting the publicness of these spaces. The occupy wall street movement itself is an experiment testing the same issue: How free are we in these spaces?

POPOS Expert and Harvard Professor Jerold Kayden asks:

“Is there a close enough nexus between the government and Brookfield? At the end of the day, could private behavior be interpreted as government action? Is Brookfield effectively a government actor? Rules need to be articulated about what can and cannot be prevented by owners of these places.”

Stay tuned as the Occupy Wall Street protesters test the legal limits of privately owned public open spaces. Oh, I guess also stay tuned as they establish enhanced progressive taxation policy and increased regulation of the financial industry through the power of drum circles.

Joe Bonk is a recent graduate of Cornell University's City and Regional Planning Masters Program where he focused on growth management policies and served as project manager and administrator for DesignConnect. He currently resides in Berkeley California. Joe can be contacted at joebonk@gmail.com. This blog also appears on Joe's website, Shapingcities.com.

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